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Thursday, July 28, 2016

Schedules Plus is the ultimate almanac to broadcast network primetime scheduling since 2001. It features lineups for three different parts of the year, as well as A18-49+ ratings that more fairly account for historical decline. For more on the tables and charts in Schedules Plus, see this primer.

This post covers NBC Thursday. Scripted lineups don't get much more potent than NBC's early-aughts Thursday schedules, book-ended by iconic comedy Friends and medical drama ER. After Friends ended in 2004, the numbers on this night really tanked... but so did the rest of the network, so comedy nights led by The Office were still among the brightest spots during NBC's darkest years. As The Office fell and then went away, things got ridiculously ugly for awhile, but the drama The Blacklist at least provided some seeds for a turn-around, and comedies Superstore and Will and Grace have made things look a bit more respectable. See the 2017-18 Breakdown.